I'm loathed to criticise, especially given TNG S1 on Blu ray was pretty phenomenal, but I don't remember this topic cropping up in any of the documentaries. Perhaps it's mentioned in a commentary I've maybe skimmed over or is yet to come.

Then again if it only boiled down to what colour a producer thought looked good on Patrick Stewart... not the most interesting story ever! Not compared to how they decided on whether he needed a hairpiece or not.

There's something like a decade spent at the movies, where department colours didn't play such a large part in Star Trek at all. Just a collar here or strip of cloth or bit of braid there.

Then again if it only boiled down to what colour a producer thought looked good on Patrick Stewart... not the most interesting story ever!

Click to expand...

Screen testing of the lead actors' costumes is a very typical part in the creation of a TV series. Of course, the other bonus for shifting to the wine colour for the command division was that it supposedly avoided the old redshirt gag, which had become a fairly mainstream joke by 1987.

Problems can be anticipated via screentests, eg:

The Velcro sides of Nimoy's TV pilot shirt collars, allowed easy off without smearing the greasepaint/pancake makeups of the day. Similarly, his black Vulcan undershirt in ST:TMP served a similar preemptive service.

The change from TOS blue for science to orange for ST:TMP (and to a mint green for medical) was to avoid the solid blue patches and epaulets from confusing the then-newish bluescreen technology.

Similarly, when they went back to blue for science/medical in TNG, they shifted it to a blue-green for the same reason.